Alas,
notwithstanding the laudable efforts, in every land, of well-intentioned
individuals working to improve circumstances in society, the obstacles
preventing the realization of such vision seem insurmountable to many. Their hopes founder on erroneous assumptions
about human nature that so permeate the structures and traditions of much of
present-day living as to have attained the status of established fact. These assumptions appear to make no allowance
for the extraordinary reservoir of spiritual potential available to any
illumined soul who draws upon it; instead, they rely for justification on
humanity’s failings, examples of which daily reinforce a common sense of
despair. A layered veil of false
premises thus obscures a fundamental truth: The state of the world reflects a
distortion of the human spirit, not its essential nature.
(The Universal House of Justice Ridvan 2012)
These posts on the divine economy have
been but a long exploration of the above statement from the Universal House of
Justice. They have presented a “spiritual”
perspective on our common and complex economic crisis, because the real crisis stems from
a terrible misapprehension of our true nature. The crisis in our material life
resides not in what Marxists would call “the relations of production”; rather,
it is in our human relations: not in our material economy but in our moral
economy; not in our knowledge, but in our self-knowledge. They presented a view on achieving general
prosperity that is strongly self-sacrificing rather than self-centered in focus,
altruistic rather than avaricious in motivation. This view, that the solution to our economic and
social woes is fundamentally spiritual in character, can, it is hoped, shed some
light into our current darkness and show a way out for all of us. The darkness that we need to escape, though,
is within us. It is the dark distortion
generated by false assumptions of the nature of the human being, that have
crystallized into an educational philosophy whose social system that it both
supports and draws legitimacy from deprives us of that which we inherently
possess.
The call of God is both to the soul
of the individual and to the spirit of humanity. The spiritualization of the individual begins
with a fundamental change in self-consciousness from a center within humanity to a
center within divinity, and out from this new center flow attitudes and
behaviors demonstrating that a “spiritual transformation” is underway. The power released by spiritual
transformation has always been and will always be the mightiest engine driving
social change, for it is the spiritual catalyst that sets off a whole chain of widening
effects.
Knowing one is created rich in
essence gives one the freedom and resources to determine, so far as
determination, initiative and thought can do, one’s life and destiny. Further, if every individual is rich, then
the collective, humanity, must be innately a colossus of wealth. Bringing ourselves down to poverty is to
strap our souls to the wheel of grim material necessity, that endlessly
revolving gerbil wheel of natural causation and cycles which are impersonal,
irresistible and beyond our control. It
is to live in a de-humanized state of nature, existing in a condition of
perpetual want and misery, enslaved to biological and psychological needs, to
be bottle-fed on anxiety and nursed by fear, captive to the urgencies of
physical life and ferociously competitive about getting them. This is the person that must be transformed.
But, transformed individuals are not sufficient by themselves to
effect the scale and speed of change needed for social advance to occur. Indeed, until a
new society takes root, such individuals are actually ramping up the confusion
in the system that is “lamentably defective”, because that system cannot
assimilate the energy and patterns of behavior that flow from spiritual
principles. Changes must also occur in
our collective consciousness and in our outer mode of collective life. Inner individual changes that are not outwardly
supported by new patterns of collective behavior and through mediating
institutions will eventually become as water in the sand. If only a few are spiritually transformed,
there is no appreciable seismic activity set off in the social landscape, though
the dynamic force of example does have powerful effect. But if large numbers of people undergo
transformation, society undergoes a transformation in its structure which means
one form blows apart so another may be built in its stead. A groundswell of spiritual transformations is
occurring. Thus a letter from Shoghi
Effendi explains: “The primary consideration is the Spirit that has to permeate
our economic life, and this will gradually crystallize itself into definite
institutions and principles that will help to bring about the ideal conditions
foretold by Baha’u’llah.” (Lights of Guidance p. 548#1864) Thus, abundance will flow to everyone when
justly formed civil and humanitarian agencies are built and function on
spiritual principles that embody a consciousness of the oneness of humanity, so that
the poor, the disadvantaged, those caught by natural disasters and in temporary
need, are not only helped but whose needs are given precedence. This is pure justice.
If we are to structure society and social institutions along spiritual
impulses emanating from our higher nature there is no doubt that they will have
to push up through layers of hardened assumptions in our minds and hearts that
is the legacy of an improper education.
Humanity may well be dragged kicking and screaming into the new world,
but enter we will, or perish. That is
why an organic social structure that already embodies spiritual principles
provides the needed organization and power to drive social advance and save
humanity from its own destructive impulses.
That organic structure is Baha'u'llah's Divine Economy, the global public
household.
The World Order of Baha’u’llah is the Kingdom of God on earth. It is a complete entity in its own right, a
gift from God with a consciousness and social institutions that embody and
reflect back this consciousness. In this
regard it is like all human civilizations, which are also a consciousness
embodied in social institutions that reflect back to it, thus creating a kind
of closed circuit of mind and behavior, a period of history, humanity and
thought.
But the divine Order of Baha’u’llah is altogether something new. It is the collective embodiment and shape of our
higher, divine nature. It is the social
form that humanity will put on like a tailor-made suit, one in which the “justice
of God” not of men, shall rule. We
cannot enter it by ourselves, especially our ego selves. Our higher nature must be aroused to
perception and action if we are to play the part required of each of us. We
cannot simply make some adjustments to our current situation and think that alone
will bring us into the new order. It is
not any higher degree of existing consciousness that will work, rather a new
consciousness expressed through new faculties of mind and heart is needed. It is not more of the same only better. It is a whole new order of life, thought,
feeling and action.
With this statement we have revolved
back to the very purpose and beginnings of these essays, to the imperative need
for a proper education, an education that can be a transformative matrix for
human souls to effect personal and social transformation. We can meet every challenge that our lower
nature has created by bringing forth the higher nature that is innately composed
of qualities that transcend narrow self-interest and by building a supportive
institutional network built upon spiritual qualities in resonant harmony with
the spiritualized individual. A complete model
of that education can be found in my book, Renewing the Sacred.
A direct link to my book, Renewing the Sacred, is http://tinyurl.com/cndew5a. It is now also in Kindle.
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